


Love me, hate me; it's all the same, really.

by SansSoucis



Series: Kissing Knuckles [6]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Brexit, Dark, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, EU, FrUK, FrUK/Ukfr - Freeform, GerFra, Hate Sex, Historical, Love/Hate, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Possessive Behavior, References to past and historical events, Romance, Sexual Content, Smoking, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence, dark themes, ukfr - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 16:40:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17104262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SansSoucis/pseuds/SansSoucis
Summary: "And now they were here, trying to drink themselves to death on the whiskey England had brought stuffed away behind tartan socks in his trunk, and with a bitter smile playing at his lips France muses that it is truly a tragic affair, that no matter how often he sacrifices his heart to be eaten at by others, the universe insists on flinging it back to England’s plate."Centuries of bloodshed and heartbreak, the Channel lying between them like a rotting gash; you would think that France would be overjoyed to see England leave the Union. And that is where you'd be wrong.





	Love me, hate me; it's all the same, really.

“So that’s it then. There’s a deal. You’re actually leaving.”

It was the late autumn of 2018, with Brussels sound asleep beneath the blackened sky, and as he watches the slumbering city from where he’s leant against the window still, he can’t help but think that it truly could have been a lovely night, hadn’t it been for him being drunk and angry and in particularly bad company.

 “Yes, very good, France. That is indeed what ‘Brexit’ means. Glad to see you catching up with current events.” England says mockingly from behind him, and while France can’t actually see him- or rather, refuses to look at him- , he assumes the same old leer of slightly crooked teeth is creeping up his face as he speaks. “What a relief to know that that excessive perfuming of yours has not completely crippled your brain.”

And if there was any verity to his words, England’s brain ought to be just as damaged, given how no amount of powder, slick or rose oil in France’s hair has ever prevented him from burying his nose in it, France thinks bitterly, but he lets the fleeting thought slide. Victory is not what he seeks from England tonight.

“You’ll choke on your stupid jokes when your pound drops below the ground and you’ll be scrambling to save your miserable existence from being crushed by the weight the world.”

He ignores the tremble of his fingers around his cigarette as he thinks of the bitter truth that could be hiding in his words. Many would say it would be only more than fitting for England to meet his own stubbornness and greed at the other end of the sword, but they had yet to stumble upon the lovely sight of England - _Arthur_ \- on his knees in the garden, working at his cherished roses with nimble hands and a content smile on his face. France was a tad selfish, had always been selfish, and he wasn’t yet ready to let England attempt to take on the world on his own, not when they were still so wrapped up in one another that part of him feared he’d fall apart without England's oddly comforting, stiff-shouldered presence at his side.

“It’ll be better than scurrying for your sovereignty like you lot will be doing in a few years.” England says airily, and just the  _twinge_  of smugness to his voice makes him want to whirl around and stamp his knuckles across those soft cheekbones, but then again, England has always sent his blood boiling, and he’s got more than two millennia of macabre history to prove it. Over two thousand years of bloodshed and death and heartbreak, but it was  _theirs_ , and France cherished it deeply. .  

Not that he would ever admit these sentiments to England himself.  England only knew how to speak in clipped tones and balled fists and had never been particularly good at identifying others’ feelings and expressing those of his own. So instead France addresses him in their common tongue, and England guffaws loudly at the severity of the curses slipping from his smoke-filled mouth.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to someone, France.” England jeers, and the alcohol lies so thick on his tongue France can almost taste it. “Then again, being  _naughty_  has always been more of your forte, innit?”

“Oh,  _va te faire foutre_!” France spits, blinking against the hair that brushes into his eyes as he whips his head around to glare at where his nemesis is lazily sprawled across the bed with a face all pink cheeks and unfocused eyes. “You drunk miserable piece of  _shit!”_

“Spoke the pot to the kettle.” England says in a crude breath of laughter, and France listens to him moving around on the bed in what he supposes is a search for the whiskey bottle they had been sharing throughout the evening, ever since Germany, disbelief evident in his icy eyes, had concluded the meeting with the baffling announcement that their representatives had managed to draft a deal, ever since England had mockingly clapped him on the shoulder and invited him for a celebratory drink with a smile so wide France had feared it would tear at his cheeks.

And now they were here, trying to drink themselves to death on the whiskey England had brought stuffed away behind tartan socks in his trunk, and with a bitter smile playing at his lips France muses that it is truly a tragic affair, that no matter how often he sacrifices his heart to be eaten at by others, the universe insists on flinging it back to England’s plate.

“God, I will miss you once you morph into a German vessel state, I’ll tell you that.”

He does not respond to the taunt, instead drags at his cigarette while furiously imagining it were England’s ashes that he tastes in his mouth instead, and England speaks again in that infuriating drawl of his, of course he does, seemingly having made it his mission to rip France apart by words now that the notion of European cooperation prevented him from using actual bullets.

“But then again, I suppose the sight of you trying to claw your way out of it will make up for it. Has anyone ever you told you that you look particularly lovely when you try to resist?”

And France shamefully has to admit that he’s quite good at it, tearing his sanity apart at the very seams; odd-one-out England, with his viper-quick tongue and green eyes hard like glass and the atrocious chequered trousers that he insists on wearing to meetings, the sickly sweet peach that France wants to feast on in spite of the maggots he knows are crawling inside its flesh.

The hand gripping at his hip does not come as a surprise, both because when intoxicated England treads about as lightly as a mountain troll, and because some things never change, not when it comes to him and England and their destructive game of push and pull, kiss and make up.  

“And I know you will resist.” England hisses hotly into his ear, and he watches how his fingers -short, pale, bitten nails- have great difficulty wiggling a cigarette out of France’s front pocket. “I know you will resist because you are  _France_  and you’ve always been too proud for your own sodding good.”

England’s eyes fall upon him as he grudgingly turns his head to connect the cigarettes between their lips, and for a second he is ingulfed in smoke and emeralds, but then England’s cigarette starts to smoulder and he can,  _thank God_ , direct his blank, hard gaze towards slumbering Brussels again. They smoke in silence for a few moments, France trying his very best not to lean into the warmth behind him, before England,  _quelle surprise_ , decides to speak again.

“I know _you_ , France. And I know that you refuse to be caged.” He almost laughs at England’s tendency to speak like a lute-wielding minstrel when it comes to matters such as sentiments. Almost.

“Times have  _changed_ , England. We are not empires anymore. One has to adapt or be sacrificed on the orbit of the rapidly revolving earth.” He replies with some elaborate word-knotting of his own, watching his cigarette wither away up until his whitened knuckles, a shiver travelling up his spine at the feeling of England’s liquor-boiling cheek resting semi-casually against his shoulder.

“Being ground to pieces between the cogs of the European machine isn’t adapting, France, it’s  _losing_.” England says sharply, tips of his fingers catching onto France’s belt-loops. “And we both know that you don’t like to lose. I’ve experienced that first-hand quite a few times now, over the hundreds of years that we’ve been fighting one another.  _Centuries,_  France.”

“And what good ever came of it,  _Angleterre_?” He wonders miserably, tossing his abandoned cigarette out the window, watching it soar towards the glistening cobblestones below, faintly desiring to join it in its flight.

He feels England stiffen behind him, and half-heartedly wonders if England is actually going to throw a boyish temper tantrum, stomping his feet and pounding his fists at being denied what he wants, like he used to do back when he was spear-wielding Albion, whose round cheeks flushed a particularly lovely shade of red as soon as he was angered, the stubborn little island child that Gaul had come to adore so, or if he would push France to the ground and attempt to beat his face into unrecognizability like he had done when they were skinny-legged adolescents who went at one another with halberds and morning stars.

He vividly recalls images of locks of England’s coarse, straw-like hair peeking through the slits in his visor, arms shaking with the effort and animalistic cries muffled by his helmet as he brought his sword down on France’s battered harness again and again and  _again.._

Even back then, flat on his back slowly sinking into the mud of Agincourt, France had despised himself for falling so hard for someone so intent on ruining him. Even after the war had ended and England had finally fucked off from the continent and onto his lonely island, the man had failed to abandon his crusade, instead only found more poisonous ways to wage it, slowly kissing and stabbing his way to France’s heart to mark it as his own.

When England finally finds words to speak, his voice has lost much of his usual smooth tone and instead found its way back to a more primal grovelling, a sound that reminds France of hot blood seeping into chainmail and the sting of gunpower in his eyes.

“You might be able to delude yourself into thinking that you’re happy playing husband and housewife with that.. that  _machine_ , but you can’t bloody fool  _me_ , France.” He growls, violently crushing what remains of his cigarette into the window frame mere inches above France’s head.

France eyes the crude contrast of the small black burn against the white polished wood, trying to ignore the unwanted sensation of loss as England stumbles away, and is unwittingly reminded of the ashtray that Germany, despite having always abstained from smoking, keeps in the back of his kitchen cabinets in case France comes around.

It’s the smallest of gestures, but Germany appears to make an awful lot of those for him, and his careful, considerate presence has curiously enough proven to be a joy to be around. All of it’s like a fresh breath of air compared to the brashness and suffocating extent of England’s pining, and the man certainly does not deserve to have England make a mockery out of him, especially not when he suspects that deep down England envies Germany’s ability to keep his composure even when provoked to the very bone, instead of erupting in a whirl of shaking fists and poisonous remarks at the slightest jab at his defenses.

“Don’t you  _dare_  use Ludwig as ab excuse to justify your own mediocre decision.” He says coolly, only realises his mistake as he sees England’s expression morph into a nasty little tight-lipped smile out of the corner of his eye

“Oh, it’s  _Ludwig_  now, hm? Please  _do_  say, are we to expect an official announcement anytime soon?”

And at the biting question France feels a pang of guilt as he thinks of him and Germany, of how grudging post-war cooperation and glares thrown from over coffee cups slowly morphed into awkward jokes and dinner dates and lips lingering a little bit too long at cheeks to be a mere cordial greeting. And while the strangely endearing sight of Germany bent over  _Le Petit Prince_  during his lunch break, deep wrinkle playing at his brow as he quietly stumbled his way through the French phrases in an attempt to memorise them, was new and foreign and  _wonderful_ , it was not  _enough_ , and it would never be enough, not for France, who, in spite of all of his love for the aesthetics, couldn’t help but be irresistibly pulled to all things toxic, filthy and destructive, all things  _England_.

And England knows. Knows France desires to be hurt and fought and fucked across continents, knows Germany’s forehead kisses will never compare, not when France still lies awake at night thinking of how desirable England looked when crying angry tears- of how badly he misses the sight.

“He is a child, France. A bloody child!” England snarls wildly from inside the darkness of the room, and France takes a moment to appreciate the irony of Germany, whose iron adolescence had the stench of death lingering all over it, somehow ending up as the sanest of them all. “He’s spent a quarter of his life hiding behind Prussia’s coattails and half of it losing wars! He will never- he won’t ever-“

He can’t face what he fears he might find in England’s eyes, instead keeps his eyes fixated on the burn, listening to the rare occasion of England suddenly stumbling over his words.

 “What it is like- what it felt to be  _killed_  by you, France.”

Silence.

Heavy, ominously thickening silence as England lets his confession wither away into the shadows.

Then, he speaks again, in an uncharacteristically tiny voice: “Certainly you remember which time I’m getting at?”

He does.  _Vividly._  The colourful picture of England twitching beneath him at Castillon with green eyes glazed over and the ground a sopping red and lips a lovely,  _lovely_  shade of blue-

“You’re sick.  _Sourcils_ , you are mad, truly.” He snarls in disgust, for once thankful for the way his hair keeps falling into his face, disabling England from seeing the hungry look in his eyes.

“Tell me something I don’t know, frog.” England says fondly, as if there is anything funny or endearing to be found in memories of how the whites of his eyes stared up at France, of how hot blood pulsated out of his side with every spasm, of how every single fibre of France’s being was alight with the thrill of the hunt and the triumph of the conquerer- “I remember…your hands around my neck..and your  _face_..flushed, bared teeth. A-and the hair…that golden hair of yours that you take so much  _sodding_  pride in-“

France hears him breathe what he supposes is a laugh, briefly considers strangling him again just to make him  _shut_   _up_.

“It was a tangled nest around your head! And I remember your eyes.. dark, swirling, blue. Like- thunderstorms. Yes, _thunderstorms._ ”

And it is in this exact moment that France stumbles out of his confusion and onto England’s trails. And he curses himself for thinking for even a second that England’s just as lost as he is, just as caught up in the web they’ve woven, every thread a kiss, every thread a punch. To hope that England is not pulling at the strings but mirroring France and wrapping them around his own neck instead.

“ _Ferme ta bouche, tu imbécile!”_  He snarls, turning around just in time to see England trap him against the window still, slim chequered thigh roughly making its way between his own.  

He knows, knows England’s pathetic attempt at a confession is coming, and how,  _how_  could he have been so daft as to think that England was going to leave without a final blow, a final attempt to make France his? It is no secret to anyone that the entirety of France’s being has been strung to the tunes of love, but England is the only one who knows just when to sing, and France despises him all the more for it.

England smirks as he realises he’s caught on, fingers tightening their grip on the too-soft skin just above France’s hips.

“I remember..your lips, as they breathed in the air you forcefully took from me, and it was beautiful,  _you_  were beautiful.”

England is so awfully close to him, and the odour of whiskey, sweat and tobacco  coming off of him is truly revolting, but underneath all that France still manages to catch faint hints of old photographs and damp earth and the salty scent of the sea, blending into an oddly pure scent that he’s found lingering on his pillowcases and uniforms for hundreds of years, a scent so awfully familiar he fears it has seeped into the core of his very being.  

“Will you  _please_  spare me your pathetic purple prose,  _Anglettere?_  If you were hoping to get a pity fuck out of this you might as well just say so, so I can properly reject you!” He spits in a last attempt – a plea for mercy, almost-  to get England to sod off, but he knows it is in vain, as Albion has already strung his bow, arrow aimed straight at France’s heart.

England leans forward to deliver his deathstab as a whisper against France’s lips. “You completely  _possessed_  me. And I recall thinking that, while the world faded to black around me..I wanted it to stay like that,  _forever_.”

One, two,  _three_  seconds and then he has England pressed up against the wall, fisting his hands in his abhorrent sweater vest while crashing their mouths together in a heated brawl of teeth and tongue.

“You bastard,” he snarls in-between bruising kisses, “you horrible little man-“ And England, masochist degenerate that he is, has the nerve to fucking  _cackle_ , even as France bites down until they both taste blood.

“Yes!” He shouts, green eyes glinting manically,  and France’s gaze can’t help but be drawn to the sinfully red flush of his abused mouth as he speaks.  “Show me, France! Show me who you really are!”

And France does, socking him square in the jaw as if their battlefield is Waterloo instead of a seedy hotel room, and England responds by hitting him equally hard across the face. Then they dance, swerving and circling over the faded carpet in a waltz of bared teeth and kissing knuckles, and France’s empty hands ache for a sword or a gun and England’s dark, thick blood dripping down from where it’s splattered all over the pristine wall.

He makes an attempt at it, moving to belt England flat on his toxic mouth where it serves him right, longing to smash that infuriating leer to smithereens, but England is quicker, his knuckles digging deeply into the soft skin right beneath the arch of France's ribs, and he is left with the absolutely  _awful_ sensation of his chest contracting in a desperate search for breath as England drags his chapped lips across his own in another searing kiss.

He can’t help but think of the very first time they’d done this, of Albion standing on the very tips of his toes and flushing a deep pink with the effort as he attempted to maul Gaul's mouth to pieces. The experience had left his lips swollen and sore afterwards, yet France would pinpoint this exact kiss as the moment he became addicted to England’s starving need to be loved, so invasive and suffocating and excruciatingly painful, so unlike  _any_  other. There was something tantalizing in the way England moved heaven and earth to get what he wanted, in how he managed to turn a beautiful thing as love into something cruel and ugly and violent, yet still managed to leave France hungering for more of it.

England interrupt his depraved musings by moaning loudly into his mouth like a back alley whore, greedy fingers tightly tangled into his curls setting his scalp ablaze, and he’s already surrendering, hands feverishly scrambling to unbuckle England’s belt.

England tastes of sweat and salt beneath his tongue, and the primal sounds he omits as France sinks his teeth into his skin are music to his ears. His trembling thigh rubs against him as he lays hot and heavy in France’s hand, and he works him with quick, rough strokes as England violently tears at his shirt and sends nacre buttons flying across the room.

He's unwittingly reminded of the way those same cursed hands used to claw their way through his many overcoats and undershirts and for a second he's back bent over a desk at lovely Versailles, powder from England's wig feathering down on him with every thrust. He bites down hard on England’s shoulder as he thinks of his cries bouncing off of ornately decorated walls, nearly coming at the thought. He refuses to succumb that easily however, especially not to  _England,_  and he pushes the memory away, instead tightening his grip around England until it has to hurt.

England responds with a sharp jerk of his hips and a sound which is muddled somewhere in between a shriek and a moan, before reaching up to grab two fistfuls of golden hair, and then France feels nothing but pain pulsing and blaring through his skull as it is slammed against the window frame, and for a second he is dazedly blinking up against stars and floating in and out of his body, half aware of England's tongue in his mouth and the way the springs of the bed wail in agony as he is roughly manoeuvred onto it.

They fuck like animals, biting and quick and still half-dressed in a whirl of scratching nails and harsh pants and skin crudely slapping against skin. England’s mouth, uncaring of which exact part of France it lands on, leaves a slick trail all over his neck and down to his chest, and as France digs his fingers into England’s buttocks and is gifted with wild growling in reponse, his mind rampages through slivers of the past, catching onto memories of England with his trousers bunched around his bony ankles clawing at trench walls, of England’s bloody hands closing over his mouth to silence his screams as he fucked him into the muddy grass of Waterloo, of England’s crimson face and restlessly moving hips as France greedily tore off his codpiece and took him into his mouth-

A particularly sharp thrust shocks him back into reality, where England’s pounding into him at an ungodly speed, desperate to send the both of them soaring towards release. He studies England’s sweaty face, from his flushed cheeks that were once marred by smallpox to his eyes scrunched shut underneath the furrow of his thick brows and to saliva glistening on his half-open mouth, and finds beauty there.

He feels so startled with the thought that he  _strikes_ , in tandem with the stutter of England’s hips, and he watches blood spray from England’s freckled nose as he howls and dies his little death, and he looks so vulnerable, so untroubled, so beautifully  _human_  that France reaches up and threads a hand through his unruly hair, imagines he can see silver at his temples and lines at his brow, and for one wonderful fleeting moment, as a white wave of pleasure washes over him, he can brush the weight of their shared history off of his shoulders and pretend that they are mere mortals, perhaps even mortals in love.

He feels England’s fingers twist at the sheets as he moves to pull out, but before he can do just that France has reached for him and pressed their battered lips together in a kiss more desperate than the others, and he relishes in the dull aching of their tired bruised mouths moving against each other, in the taste of England’s blood in his mouth as his hips finally still and the last of his climax crackles into silence.

He watches England’s copper-smeared lips open and close as he slowly comes down, realises he’s talking to him. “-with me, France- Francis,  _please_. Come with me.”

The broken need in his voice takes him back to England wailing those very same pleas into the crook of his neck as they lay face down in the darkened sand of Dunkirk and just like back then, with the only part of France that England ended up taking home with him being spittle drying on his mouth, France has his answer ready.

“Please come with me,  _Francis.”_  England’s voice cracks like an adolescent’s and France looks up at his face, damp-eyed and covered in blossoming bruises and for once not guarded with a leer or a snarl, and struggles more than ever to breathe though the clenching of his heart as he forces the next words out of mouth.

 “I would have loved to,  _Arthur,_  had I been  _just_ Francis. However, I am also France and I’ve got the fate of my people and my country to reconsider. Surely you understand.”

It pains him more than he would ever care to admit to see England draw his walls up again, the hardening of his eyes, the sickening paling of his skin, the tightening of his thin lips in an ugly sneer.

“..right.” He says, drawing his hands away from France as if he’s been burned. “Of course. How could I’ve-?”

He laughs shrilly, a truly awful sound. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course you’d rather stick with the Kraut, because that’s all you ever seem to do, innit?  _Pain me?”_

“England, I-“ He says, aghast, because despair is written all over England’s face and he doesn’t  _understand_ , but England only flinches away, green eyes blinking furiously as he pulls up his trousers, tugs his shirt down from where France had pushed it up to kiss and bite at his chest. “England-“ He tries again, but England only picks up the abandoned  bottle and flings it against the wall where it explodes into thousands of glittering pieces.

“No, belt it!” He screeches at him over the sound of breaking glass, roughly wiping at his cheeks. “Don’t you bloody dare, I-  _fuck! Fuck you!”_

And for once France humours him, watching as Brussels bathes in the earliest rays of morning sun while trying to ignore England’s desperate attempts to stifle his sobs into his sleeve cuffs. And as the mixture of their sweat cools down on his naked body and the pain of bruises, scratches and bitemarks starts to settle in, he gladly welcomes the sting in the hope that it will put the ache of his heart to shame.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is reuploaded because I had some problems with the publishing date. It was set like three weeks earlier so my work did not show up first when you browsed recent works.


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